


Helping Hands

by thedevilchicken



Category: The Girl Who Became a Boy (Albanian Fairy Tale)
Genre: Fairy Tale Logic, Gen, Not Serious, Snakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 09:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14639454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: The girl who became a boy becomes a king. He needs a little help from an unexpected source.





	Helping Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spoke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoke/gifts).



Not all snakes are bad. 

The first thing the young man decided, when he'd become a prince and then afterwards became a king, was that everyone deserves a fair chance in life. His own chance hadn't exactly been completely fair, after all, considering he'd survived his trials thus far in life more by blind luck than by good judgement; his magical talking horse had a lot more of the latter and him more of the former, and they both know it even now. Fortunately, said talking horse knows a good deal when he sees one and so keeps his mouth firmly closed on that particular subject. 

The young man had become a prince when he married the princess and then became a king when the old king died, and still nothing in his life went totally to plan; though it wasn't in his nature to complain very much about it, he inherited a kingdom halfway into bankruptcy. He had to admit this didn't come to him as a complete surprise, considering his father-in-law's frequent flights of fancy - honestly, deciding his only daughter's spouse by way of a moat-jumping, apple-catching competition had been the very least of his daily foibles. The real surprise was that there was any money left at all when he'd departed, but they would certainly have to make the most of what was there. The young man just wasn't entirely sure how, and, for once, his talking horse was out of handy suggestions. Short of gambling, at least, and the young man suspected he shouldn't push his luck.

Not all snakes are bad. That was an important thing to remember, the young man thought, though people said some really terrible things - they said St. George had cursed them all on the day he'd slain the dragon, for a start. The young man thought that seemed somewhat on the harsh side, all things considered, since the snakes wouldn't all become dragons one day. Most of them really were just snakes, not bolla or kulshedra. Most of them were just slithering through life, minding their own business. And that was where the idea came from: the snakes in the church were _minding their own business_. 

"I'm not sure this is a great idea," the young man's talking horse said to him, as they made their way down the long path from the castle into town. He sounded skeptical to say the least, which the young man supposed he couldn't blame him for. 

"They did me a good turn the last time we were there," the young man replied, optimistically, and he gave the horse's head a reassuring pat between the ears. Of course, he knew the snakes hadn't quite meant it that way at the time, but they deserved the benefit of the doubt just like anyone. His horse's terrifying mother had turned out to be quite pleasant, after all, despite first impressions.

His horse said nothing more on the subject. Perhaps that was for the best - when he has nothing nice to say, he tries to say nothing at all.

When they got to the church, the young man dismounted and he knocked somewhat nervously on the big old door - rap rap rap with its big brass knocker. He heard the knock echoing inside, then a hissing, then a slithering of scales across stone floors. Soon, a snake's forked tongue flickered out of the keyhole and it said, disappointedly, "Oh no, not you." 

"You remember me?" the young man asked. 

"Well, we're not likely to forget," the snake replied. "Have you come to trick us out of all our hard-earned cash again?"

The horse gave an indignant toss of his mane and muttered something about income tax evasion. The young man patted his snout.

"I have a business proposition," he said. "Did you know I'm the king now?"

For a moment, the snake was really quite quiet, except for all the hissing that went on somewhere back behind the door. Then a key turned, then a bolt slid back, and then the big church door swung open. An old blind bolla was sitting there coiled up on the floor inside; the young man thought it best not to ask exactly how snakes operated relatively complex locking mechanisms with a lack of opposable thumbs, so he nodded hello instead.

"You'd better come in," the snake said, turning to lead the slithery way. "Leave the horse, though. We don't like him very much."

So, the young man went inside, with a rueful glance over his shoulder at his unconvinced horse. 

The king and the snake had a lot to discuss, to both their benefit.

\---

The young man isn't quite so young these days.

He's in his early forties now, and he has three sons, and he has three daughters, and he tells them they can be anything they want to be (because he figures the snakes can probably fix that). He's very happy with his queen who's happy with him and they all live happily in their fine castle. They _don't_ hold moat-jumping, apple-catching competitions, they don't feed potential suitors to local kulshedra, and the kids will decide for themselves who they marry. 

Still, the kingdom is doing better than ever now, thanks to the deal he made that day, even if his magic horse still gets huffy when they talk about it (but that's probably because it wasn't his idea, for once). And, whenever they have guests, they just politely ignore the hissing from the castle's newest wing; the snakes have moved out of the church now, at least. 

They'd been living in the church almost as long as anyone in town could remember, since probably not long after St. George blew through town. To be fair, no one had ever actually told them to leave; they'd been paying their rent for the church fair and square. To be fair, no one had ever actually told them to pay their taxes, either; the people were a bit too scared they'd be eaten and the laws of the land really hadn't paid very much attention to businesses wholly owned and operated by teams of magical reptiles. 

It turned out no one had ever thought to tell the magical creatures about the concept of taxation, and the ones who'd given it any time or thought of their own accord had flicked through the kingdom's creatureless laws and assumed they were exempt. That was one of the first things they looked at together. A great many things have changed. And the young man thinks the snakes were all probably just concerned about another curse that day he took their cash - they still haven't forgotten St. George and it's been centuries, he's told. 

The kingdom is doing better than ever now, twenty years on from that day. The snakes all pay their fair share of tax, and so do the lugat and the shtriga and even the sea-dwelling baloz, who were actually quite apologetic about it once they realised how much they owed, and now they pay their tax in fish. The kulshedra pay their taxes, too, in return for a regular supply of oxen - it turns out the rumours about how human sacrifice is the only way you can appease them aren't actually completely true after all, if you just give them the same fair chance that everyone should have. Plus, having dragons on their side makes a surprisingly good deterrent to invasion. 

They all chip in. And now they're a community, the monsters in the kingdom of the girl who became a boy who became a prince who became a king just don't seem all that monstrous anymore.

The snakes had been living and working in the church almost as long as anyone in town could remember. They were surprisingly efficient businesspeople, all things considered: the young ones caught rats for cash and the older ones performed feats of sorcery for hire, brewed love potions, turned sad cabbage broth into delicious-tasting stew, that general sort of thing. They'd been raking it in for years, hand over the proverbial fist, so the young man had asked them for their help. 

"Well, it can't be much worse than people chasing us with brooms," the old blind bolla said, when the snakes had got together to confer. "You'd think we were trying to eat them and not the rats, the way they carry on." She slithered closer. "Move us into the castle and you've got a deal."

She offered him the end of her tail like a slightly scaly handshake. The young man shook it. The deal was done.

These days, his financial advisor is a viper with an abacus and his right hand man is a talking horse, and no one in the kingdom seems to think that's odd. There's food on their tables, after all. There's more than enough to go round.

Not all snakes are bad. Some are, of course, a bit like he knows some people are, but most of them are just trying to make their way in life. Most will lend a helping hand, metaphorically speaking, if you just ask them to.

It turns out a girl can be a boy and a team of business-savvy snakes can make a bankrupt kingdom solvent. And, the young man hopes, they can all live happily ever after.


End file.
